This invention pertains to a mouse cursor control system and in particular to one for quickly moving a cursor among split screens in a display device.
Recently, systems, such as CAD (computer aided design) systems, handling graphics on display screens have become wide spread.
New efficient input means replacing conventional keyboard input systems have been developed for the interfaces between such systems and human beings, i.e. GUI's (graphic user interfaces).
Therefore, a GUI system for inputting information using a display screen and a tablet has been developed.
The GUI system using the tablet is to input information by having a user point to the desired one of the menus displayed on a display screen with a tablet.
Meanwhile, recent work stations and personal computers widely use methods of inputting information by using a mouse, as a pointing device, and point menus on the display screens. The mouse is used to move a cursor on a display screen to a desired position and to select one of the menus.
In such a system using a mouse, in order to interlock the moves of the mouse with those of the cursor, a cursor needs to be moved on the display screen in correspondence with the distance and direction of movement of the mouse.
Such a conventional GUI system using a mouse configures a cursor to be moved in a corresponding direction (angle) to the movement of the mouse and over a distance in a predetermined ratio with the mouse distance of movement, so that the moves of the mouse and those of the cursor are interlocked.
The ratio between the mouse moving distance and the cursor moving distance is determined to attain the best operability based on ergonomics. That is, if the above ratio is too large, a minor mouse move causes the cursor to move too far, which makes it difficult to point to the desired position. On the other hand, if it is too small, the mouse needs to be moved around over a long range, which causes the operability to deteriorate. Thus, the ratio is chosen so that appropriate mouse moves adequately cover the cursor moves over the entire display screen.
Thus, an application in which a cursor frequently moves back and forth between the menu region provided at a margin of the display screen and the other graphic region has a problem of inferior operability because of cumbersome cursor moves necessitated by comparatively longer distance moves of the mouse.